Let me preface by saying that I have nothing against scrapbooking. I think it's a darling & productive hobby, and I love to look at the amazing pages that my friends create.
It's just not for me. I get too overwhelmed by the embellishments, the punches, the stickers. The storage, the messes, the trips to the craft store. Frankly, I'm terrified by the commitment of gluing things together.
Still, something must be done. My girls deserve to grow up with the kind lovely books that line the shelves of my patient, talented scrapbooking friends. Surely there is a solution for those of us who are neither patient, NOR talented.
Enter the greatest invention of all times. (aside from the Vita-Mix blender, which - mark my words - WILL be mine)
I have been organizing our photos into books using Picaboo.com (I also recommend Shutterfly.com - see below).
*No cutting
*No gluing
*For me, No tearing up and RE-gluing
*No swiping my debit card at the craft store
*No messy kitchen table.
Just a simple click, click, click, done.
Here are a few samples from Leah's book. If you're a simple girl too, see below for suggestions.
The two best sites I have found are Shutterfly and Picaboo. My favorite thing about Shutterfly is that everything is done online. They store your photos and your pages. No downloading (no risk of loosing work if your computer crashes), and the site is quick. Picaboo, on the other hand, has to be downloaded onto your computer. You store the photos, pages, etc, which means it can eat memory, and the program sometimes CRAWLS. I've done books using both, and if I had to choose, would recommend Picaboo (Leah's pages were done with Picaboo) if for no other reason than their background paper selection is amazing. When you're designing a page with Picaboo, click "More backgrounds online." Make time, though - It's SO fun to browse the designs - Like shopping for free! Also, Picaboo lets you design pages in any order & sort them when you're done. Shutterly is linear. I got so frustrated using Shutterfly, as I would occasionally design pages out of order and have to delete them and start over. On the other hand, I do like Shutterfly's cover design better...Ah, life is a series of compromises.
